Makeshift Vanities
by nuclear death frog
Summary: A full AU starting in the same place as "Gifts of the Phoenix". Things which lack rough edges are too polished. Features rough edges, a lack of Brit-picking because I cannot be bothered, and may feature ludicrous nonsense for the sake of ludicrous nonsense. If you like pineapple, pull up a chair.
1. The Will of the Wand

**For a split second, both Harry and Riddle, wand still raised, stared at it. Then, without thinking, without considering, as though he had meant to do it all along, Harry seized the Basilisk fang on the floor next to him and plunged it straight into the heart of the book.**

Terrifying pain crashed over him, like the entire mass of the wide ocean hitting the beach all at once with crushing force. His every nerve was an inferno, his skull was splitting open, there was a keening wail he heard from miles in the distance...

His sight blinked out in a moment and he crumpled on the floor, unconscious.

He woke... was he awake?... to white clouds and indistinct, blinking images. He was being shaken, and someone was talking to him in a voice he could not recall having ever heard... it was a man's voice.

"Harry."

The voice was clear, but Harry could see nothing of the man speaking to him.

"It's not time yet, Harry."

Where was he? So far as Harry knew, he was in the Chamber of Secrets. He was trying to save Ginny Weasley... he had killed a Basilisk set upon him by Tom Riddle, who one day would... who had in the past, grown up to call himself Lord Voldemort. Tom Riddle had come out of a diary... he, Harry, had stabbed the diary with a fang from the Basilisk. No one else was around... Ginny Weasley was unconscious. There was no one who could be shaking him, talking to him.

"You've destroyed it, Harry; you've destroyed them. You can't stay here; it isn't time, it isn't right. There's something out there that can't be seen from here. But don't come back here, Harry. Not for a hundred years."

The voice withdrew. The shaking stopped, and whoever it was, was gone.

He awoke to the grimy, filthy floor of the underground cavern, and recoiled but only slightly. Cautiously, he sat up inch by inch, eventually making it to a sitting position, and then to his feet.

It felt like it took years. It probably took two minutes.

He heard what sounded like sniffles, close by. He shook himself, then picked up his wand from the floor near the ruined book. It felt dead to his touch, and would not issue a single spark no matter how he waved it. Confused, horrified, he returned it to his pocket though he knew instinctively it would do no good.

Harry gazed at the corpse of the Basilisk. Among the few bits of wandlore he knew was that the cores were physical features of powerful magical creatures, and that in the long-distant past, wizards sometimes took samples of creatures they had personally killed to use as cores for wands. Feathers, scales, hair, heart-strings, claws, or fangs were the norm. He walked over to the great body, and ever so carefully he pulled the remaining large fang from the mouth of the dead serpent. He wrapped it up and vowed to keep it safe.

He turned, and now saw that Ginny Weasley was awake. She had been the source of the sniffles then. Turning back to the Basilisk, he drew the sword out from the roof of its mouth. In lieu of a proper sheath, he thrust it through his belt; that would do to be going on with.

The diary, he remembered. He needed to take it along. It was evidence of... something. Very complex and dangerous magic, the purpose of which he did not understand.

The Sorting Hat also needed retrieving. It was part of Hogwarts... it could not remain here, underground, forever, though this chamber too was part of Hogwarts. Salazar Slytherin himself had built it... and left behind the Basilisk.

He looked closely at the diary, and could now appreciate that he had pretty thoroughly ruined it. Certainly it was no good now as a diary, with a great gaping hole burned into it. The thought crossed his mind that whatever dangerous, powerful enchantments it had carried were certainly broken now.

"Ginny", he said aloud. He turned back, and saw that she was looking around now. He saw her stare at the Basilisk, then at the diary, last at the sword.

She started crying, and then began talking very fast. Tom Riddle was mentioned often, but there was more about her parents, and the thought that she would be expelled; Harry found it a little hard to listen to because of his own thoughts, but managed to find some words he thought would be reassuring.

"It's alright," Harry managed to say. "The Basilisk is dead. Riddle's gone."

Fawkes trilled. Ginny continued crying softly.

Harry looked into the distance, towards the chamber's entrance. "Ron's waiting for us," he said. "We should go."

Ginny nodded, and followed as Harry walked. Fawkes flew off Harry's shoulder, and lit the way.

They reached the head of the chamber in moments, and the tunnel that had led to it. They made progress up the dark tunnel, Fawkes leading the way, and soon the sound of shifting rock reached Harry's ears.

"Ron!" Harry yelled, speeding up. "Ginny's okay! I've got her!"

He heard Ron give a strangled cheer, and they turned the next bend to see his eager face staring through the sizable gap he had managed to make in the rock fall.

"_Ginny!_" Ron thrust an arm through the gap in the rock to pull her through first, then hugged her fiercely with what looked to Harry as all his worth. "I can't believe it! You're alive! How – what – where did that bird come from?" He gaped at Fawkes.

"He's Dumbledore's," said Harry shortly. "Let's get out of here; I'll explain as we go."

They made their way up the tunnel to the head, where Harry learned that Lockhart had lost all his memory as a result of using the badly damaged wand.

Harry did not say anything about the diary or the sword nor the bundle of cloth he had wrapped around the fang. Fawkes lifted the whole group up the great pipe-shaft towards Myrtle's loo.

Fawkes led the way to Professor McGonagall's office, his red and golden plumage luminescent.

The reunion exceeded his emotional expectations. His explanation drained him almost completely, but still Harry remained in the office with Dumbledore after everyone else had left.

"Sit down, Harry," said the headmaster, and Harry sat.

"First of all, Harry, I want to thank you." Harry saw that he was smiling. "You must have shown me real loyalty, down in the Chamber of Secrets. Nothing but that could have called Fawkes to you." Dumbledore's expression turned somewhat curious. He stroked the scarlet plumage of the phoenix, who had just flown onto his knee. Harry somehow managed a grin at this sight.

"And so you met Tom Riddle," the man continued thoughtfully. "I imagine he was most interested in you."

A rush of thoughts overcame Harry, but there was one that was the most pressing. "Professor, there's a problem I didn't mention. I think something happened to my wand; it doesn't want to work."

Dumbledore's eyebrows rose; he looked alarmed. "Indeed? Wandlore is not my field, Harry, but may I see?"

Harry drew the wand out of his pocket; it remained dead to his touch. Grimacing, he passed it to the headmaster. Dumbledore took it and waved it a bit. He held it close to his right ear as though he were listening to it, then simply stared at it for a long minute.

Dumbledore handed it back to Harry, shaking his head and looking almost sad. "That is perplexing, and no doubt distressful. I shall take you to see Ollivander in the morning, Harry; I do not doubt you want this resolved as soon as possible."

Nodding, Harry returned it to his pocket again. Remembering what they had been previously speaking of, he marshaled his thoughts.

"Professor, Riddle said I'm like him. Strange likenesses, he said."

"_Did_ he now?", the professor inquired, eyebrows raised. "And what do you think, Harry?"

Harry's answer started abruptly. "I don't think I'm like him! I'm in _Gryffindor_ -" but then he stopped dead silent.

For a while he didn't speak, until he repeated himself, trying to inject a little more force in his voice. "I'm in Gryffindor." He was not sure he succeeded.

Dumbledore nodded anyhow. "You are."

Harry wasn't inclined to say more. Dumbledore smiled in a slightly strange way, and then said, "What you might do, Harry, if you truly doubt your place in Gryffindor, is take a closer look at _this_." And then he passed him the sword.

Turning the sword over, he saw the engraved name of the owner: Godric Gryffindor.

"Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that out of the Hat, Harry." Dumbledore's smile was serene.

Some time later, after freeing Dobby from the Malfoy family, after a feast in the Great Hall where he received many thanks for ending the ordeal, as he prepared himself to sleep, Harry thought about these words and others, and wondered which to believe.

It was an impossible decision to make. The ideas didn't seem to reconcile.

Harry remembered the strange and haunting song issued by Fawkes as he flew into the Chamber; how it had made Harry's heart feel as though it were greatly swelling in his chest, and how it had seemed to alarm Riddle such that he whirled around to watch the phoenix's flight.

Dumbledore had spoken of music as being a magic beyond all that was done at Hogwarts...

In the phoenix, Harry believed.

([])

The wandmaker's shop looked no different to Harry than it had almost two years before, on his eleventh birthday. It remained the last shop in the row, and also the thinnest. The tinkling bell had still signaled his entrance through the door with the peeling gold letters above it. There was considerable dust on the floor; the air in the shop made the back of his neck prickle; he knew now that it must be enchantments of some sort, perhaps or even likely to be secrets of the family to whom the shop had always belonged.

Thousands of wands were still stacked up to the ceiling on the shelves which ran all the way along the walls to the back of the shop. A single wand remained on the faded purple cushion in the dusty window. Harry recognized it as the same single wand, but he did not know to whom it had once belonged. Perhaps it had never been sold, he thought, and was only for display.

Harry wondered if all the wands in the shop had been made by the Ollivander family, or whether there might be some that had been gained in trade with wandmakers in foreign lands.

He turned as he heard footsteps, and he saw Ollivander's moon-bright eyes shining from the gloom in the rear of the shop.

"Harry Potter," said the old man, possibly in greeting. "Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple. What brings you here today? You are not expected."

Harry swallowed. "My wand doesn't seem to work anymore. I need it fixed, or replaced."

The old man stopped short at this news. "That is most sad. A very good wand, that one; perhaps one of the best I have made. Well, let me see it and we shall learn if it can be remedied."

Harry handed the wand over. The old man took it, and beckoned him to the back of the shop.

Having only been in the shop once before, Harry had never seen the backroom. There were shelves here too, but there was no dust. There were shelves with lengths of raw cut wood; Harry knew that wood needed work before it could be made into a wand. There were also shelves of the cores, and shelves of finished wood. In the center of the room was a solid oak workbench and a spindly chair. A second spindly chair sat in a corner of the room. Ollivander motioned Harry towards that chair; Harry pulled it closer to the great workbench.

Ollivander sat at the workbench, pulled his chair very close to Harry, and turned his concentration on the wand. Harry watched as the man turned it in his hands several times; he too held it to his right ear as if listening to it; and he stared at it for several long minutes. A few times he waved it experimentally, but it did not issue sparks for him either.

"The wand is lost," began the wandmaker. "Dead, in fact. It will not work again. Curious and tragic, this." Ollivander stared at Harry. "How long has it been since the wand functioned?"

Harry swallowed nervously. "Less than a day."

Ollivander gazed at Harry with a greater intensity than he had used before. "It seems to have been no more than a few hours ago, I believe."

Harry could only nod. Ollivander reached out with a long white finger and touched Harry's scar while holding the wand.

"Curious," said Ollivander. His stare was now bothering Harry. "I think that this is not a coincidence."

Harry looked down at the floor. He held the bundle of cloth he'd wrapped the fang in. "I thought I might need a new wand, and I brought this along." He unraveled the cloth and let the fang drop to the floor.

Ollivander looked at it. "My word, Mr Potter, what is that?" His voice had dropped to nearly a whisper.

"A fang from Salazar Slytherin's Basilisk. I killed it last night, down in the Chamber of Secrets."

Ollivander stared at Harry again, seemingly looking right through him. "I expected great things from you, Mr Potter, but you have exceeded even my expectations. I will examine this."

He took it off the floor, then smiled. "I have never gotten to work with any piece of a Basilisk before; few wandmakers, perhaps none at all, ever have. This may be a very great privilege."

From a pocket Ollivander produced the silver tape measure that Harry remembered. "You will need to be remeasured, to be sure of the length." He measured Harry from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round his head. He moved back and let the tape measure finish by finding the distance between Harry's nostrils. It then fell to the floor.

"As expected, eleven inches is the right measurement. I think it was worth checking though," the wandmaker muttered, seemingly more to himself.

Harry only shrugged; the numbers meant little to him. He only wanted the wand to be complete.

Ollivander picked up the tape measure from the floor and moved to the shelves with the lengths of finished wood. He took many samples down and moved them to the workbench. With his wand in hand he murmured more words which Harry could not understand but knew had to be spells.

Ollivander looked up again, straight at Harry. "One further thing, Mr Potter, before I begin to make the new wand. I fear your old one must be destroyed. I offer you the choice of doing so, as you are not receiving a punishment. Do you wish to break this wand yourself?"

Harry was shocked. He had not considered that he could not keep his first wand. He found he could not answer, and some of his feelings must have shown on his face, for Ollivander said solemnly, "It is the law. This wand has ceased functioning, but the charms on it remain active, and only members of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement are ever given the privilege of owning a secondary or further wands."

Harry nodded, disheartened that he could not at least have the memento. "I... could you please do it?"

Ollivander nodded. He gripped the wand between both hands and swiftly broke it. Harry winced at the sound, at the finality. "You see, Mr Potter, that the phoenix feather has come apart?"

Harry looked at the broken wand and nodded.

"A wand that has sustained this sort of damage cannot be repaired by any means I know of. We shall burn the pieces, to be certain." Ollivander muttered a spell Harry could not hear, and the pieces of the broken wand began to burn.

Harry watched as the two halves of his former wand swiftly burned away. Ollivander waved his wand again and the ashes vanished, leaving no sign. Harry was left a little bit cold; he had been very fond of that wand despite which wand it had been brother to.

"And now I shall make you a new wand."

Hours later, Harry found himself remembering the words Ollivander said before bowing him from the shop: _Great things, Mr Potter. Great things indeed._

The Basilisk fang-cored wand had issued a great flood of emerald and gold flames...

That was Slytherin and Gryffindor again. The Sorting Hat had told him he would have done well in Slytherin, it had told him _You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that_...

The Sorting Hat had not told him any such thing about Gryffindor. More than a year later, it had reaffirmed its opinion that he would have done well there.

Yet, when push came to shove, the Sorting Hat had given him Gryffindor's sword, when he had asked for help.

Perhaps both were in him, somehow.

Several people had now told him he was or would be great. Harry was not quite sure what to believe.

The last few days of term passed quickly, without major incident.

Draco Malfoy was forced to shelve his arrogant swagger after his father Lucius was sacked as a Hogwarts governor. Far from his previous form, he spent much of the remainder of the term seemingly riding the cusp of considerable anger. It was different from any expressions Harry or his friends had seen in the blond Slytherin; it did not fit his features. Harry wanted to think Malfoy would not do something drastic but was not willing to wager on that. Ron and Hermione seemed to agree at least in part.

Ginny Weasley seemed to be happy again after a few days spent subdued. She quietly thanked Harry for saving her, but would not say much in front of him after that. Harry noted that she had been slightly red when she thanked him. It was much toned down from the glowing flushes he recalled from the previous summer.

Without a professor, Defense lessons were canceled, to Hermione's annoyance, so Harry and his friends found some time to practice the Disarming Charm and some other minor jinxes in the otherwise empty classroom. Not currently having a wand of his own, Ron had to practice with Hermione's wand; Harry's wand would only work for Harry, neither Ron nor Hermione even got sparks from it.

Whispers followed Harry as he walked the halls, but they were no longer the aggressive sort he had been forced to hear earlier in the year. He was no more fond of this type than the former, and the relentless stares were something he was fast becoming tired of. He had no expectation of them going away.

One day before term ended, Harry tried calling for Dobby, the elf appearing the moment he called, and with him worked out details of a plan or two for the summer and beyond. The elf had readily, almost manically, agreed to help, and Harry was willing to let him.

As the train moved southward to Kings Cross, Harry found himself beset with a nagging thought: "Time only runs forward."


	2. The Shadows Within

OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION (opened)

Memorandum No. ##########

Dated: ##/##/####

Sending: ^%(^&(%^&%

Receive: *&^$%#%^

As of this writing, the primary subject remains latent. However, it seems likely that the expected parameters will require upward revision. Observation continues on all concerned.

OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION (closed)

The above paper, only reproduced here, was found in the acquired papers of a professor following his death in the year 2046. Unfortunately, little can be gleaned from the above, and it was the only one of its type. Was the professor the sender? The receiver? The elusive "primary subject"? Or one of those "concerned"?

It is included here largely for its entertainment value.

([])

The last compartment of the Hogwarts Express was empty when Harry Potter pulled open the sliding door, dragged his trunk in behind him, secured the trunk away for the journey, placed Hedwig's cage on the seat and sat down next to the owl with a deep exhalation and a longish sigh.

It had been an interesting but exhausting summer.

It had started off better than the summer following his first year. The Dursleys did not lock him or Hedwig in, and with the judicious use of a set of pick-locks they did not know he owned, he was able to liberate his belongings from the cupboard under the stairs at will. So long as he did not spill ink on his sheets (easy to manage) the Dursleys would not know he was studying magic by night. As they had never brought it up, he thought they remained ignorant.

Two days after he had returned to what he thought of as the detention center at Privet Drive, he began learning of a new angle. Walking the neighborhood and trying to avoid the stares of the residents, all of whom scowled at him as he passed by wearing his ill-fitting clothes and trainers, he could not miss the whispers they did not seem bothering to hide.

"Juvenile detention" … "secure center" … "controlled facility" … "correctional institute for troubled youth" … these and other phrases did not fail to enter his ears. With Dobby spying on the neighbors at Harry's request, the missing pieces of the puzzle had been quickly filled in. The residents of Privet Drive and the surrounding streets believed Harry Potter attended a correctional facility for troubled or criminal boys. The source of this belief had been the Dursleys themselves.

Furious, Harry had thought about loudly confronting his relatives. But then he had thought it over. He had realized it would do no good. Hogwarts was a secret, meaning his relatives could not talk about it, not that they would. Even were it not a secret, the neighborhood would not believe it, as they were all the same sorts of people as the Dursleys were: stuffy, posing, obnoxious, and arrogant with nothing to back up their arrogance.

In the past, Harry had never developed anything resembling a mean streak. It hit him with a shock that this rumor was license to do so. What would he lose? The neighbors already thought him a budding criminal and hated him without cause due to his so-called family's lies. Harry had no reason to like them, either for their words, their ignoring of the Dursleys' actions, or the actions of their children. He well remembered being isolated in primary school even though it had been years before. On some level, it still hurt, even though he now had magic and the magical world.

If Harry caused some destruction or chaos around the area, it would only enhance the image of him as a young hoodlum. He didn't exactly want that image, but it would reflect back much worse on the Dursleys, because they were the ones raising him and in theory responsible for him. It was a way to turn their lies against them.

Free of any guilt, and for the first time feeling aggressive and wanting to get back at the loathsome adults for their disregard, Harry had acted. With Dobby's help, he was able to silently get in and out of the Dursleys' house after nightfall.

He started small, destroying a few flowerbeds. That had not satisfied him long, and releasing some anger felt good. He scratched several cars' paint-jobs very badly with a metal file. Unsatisfied, he had broken windows out on cars belonging to the parents of members of Dudley's gang. It had risked the alarms going off, but fortunately none had. Finally, in what Harry thought was the best act of the lot, he had smashed in the windshield of Vernon's car with a weight from his potions kit. The police had been summoned, but there was no evidence which could be traced back, not even fingerprints. Vernon had raged about "police incompetence" for more than a week.

Privet Drive seethed, but there was no way the Dursleys could blame him because they were under the impression he could not enter or exit the house without their aid, since he lacked a key. And since Harry wore his dragonhide gloves at all times on these excursions, there were no fingerprints to trace.

Harry kept his enjoyment at the disruptions strictly to himself. It was an enjoyable month and some days, before the end of July.

He was grateful to Dobby for his aid in these events. He was grateful to Dobby for other unrelated reasons as well, such as supplying him food and other sundries from Hogwarts, and his role in the newly enacted plan. So far the plan had not produced much result, but the vital pieces required him to be at Hogwarts.

Dudley had returned to Privet Drive before Harry had, fatter than ever. The boy now sported no less than five chins. The Dursleys had bought a television for the kitchen at Dudley's whining demand that he didn't want to walk from the kitchen to the sitting room continually. The move allowed him to sit in front of a television in the kitchen and stuff his face all day almost without interruption.

Harry wondered how it was that the Dursleys did not realize their son, thirteen years old and just over a meter-sixty high, most probably exceeded fifteen stone weight. Then again, Vernon weighed considerably more, so for the time being the Dursleys were definitely not concerned. Harry thought it was disgusting how his aunt and uncle doted on their whale of a spawn, but trying to call attention to the boy's sheer mass would be worse than futile. Harry thought vindictively that if perhaps Dudley was dead before his eighteenth birthday of a heart attack, that might wake his parents up, or perhaps it would kill Vernon with his own heart attack.

Harry decided he would look forward to the day he could laugh in his aunt's face about her role in the deaths of her husband and son. It would be sweet indeed.

Harry's thirteenth birthday at the end of July had marked the end of his night-time bouts of justice seeking against Privet Drive and its inhabitants. Harry decided that a month and change was enough to have the people seething for probably a year or more.

His birthday had also brought him numerous gifts. Ron had sent him a Pocket Sneakoscope and a small box of Chocolate Frogs; Hermione had sent him a broomstick-servicing kit which included various types of polish, some buffing cloths, small shears with which to prune broken twigs, and a booklet detailing all the items' use. Hagrid had sent Harry something entirely different: a moving, biting book called _The Monster Book of Monsters_, and a letter telling him to enjoy the book. Harry had not been able to, as the book would not sit still for him to read. He had consigned it to his trunk with a belt tied around it.

There had been an owl from Hogwarts delivering a permission form for Hogsmeade visits. Harry had scowled while looking at the form; he knew vaguely that Hogsmeade was a village near the castle and the only all-magical settlement in Britain, but he did not think there was any use showing the form to either his aunt or uncle; neither one of them would even consider signing it, most likely. He thought hard about forging one of their signatures, but in the end reluctantly decided against it.

There had also been a small box containing a Golden Snitch, and a note from Dumbledore saying that it was the Snitch that Harry had caught in his first ever Quidditch match. The letter had gone on to say that Dumbledore had intended to send it to Harry for his coming of age at seventeen, but realized he had no reason to hold onto it four further years. Dumbledore had written that he had removed the charms which allowed the Snitch to perform its work, and then had asked Harry to ponder whether the item was a Snitch only because of its form, or was it a Snitch if it could work as a Snitch. Harry had not yet given the question any serious thought.

The letter had closed _Keep it safe_.

In the week following his birthday, Vernon's sister Marge had visited Privet Drive, and thinking about Hogwarts had been all that kept Harry sane in that week. It had only barely been enough; on the last night of her visit a glass had broken while she was holding it, and though she passed it off saying she had a very firm grip, Harry was quite sure her grip had not been involved.

A week before the holiday ended, Harry finally received a letter saying he could safely leave, and he had slipped out of the house that night without even saying goodbye, Dobby took him to the Leaky Cauldron, where he had rented a room for the last days of the break.

As Harry slouched down into his seat, he wondered if Ron and Hermione would turn up in the compartment before the train left.

He looked out the window and saw an extremely pretty girl with long black hair. He thought he had seen her before, and wondered who she was. She looked vaguely familiar.

There was no sign of the Weasleys.

With only minutes to spare, they turned up. Hermione had turned up only minutes prior.

Finally the train departed. Harry settled down into his seat, hoping to enjoy a nap.

([])

The hall was packed and the hall was lit by the horde of candles that Harry remembered from his own first night at Hogwarts. It was beautiful and bright and it made Harry feel welcome, a feeling he had only ever had at Hogwarts and at the home of the Weasley family.

This night would be the first time he had seen a Sorting Ceremony that was not his own. The previous year, he and Ron had missed the ceremony and the feast after flying Mr Weasley's Ford Anglia to Hogwarts. As deeply in trouble as he and Ron had gotten in at the time – Harry was sure that anyone else would have been expelled – flying the car to Hogwarts had probably saved his life in the end, for the car had been at Hogwarts, "alive" and active in the Forbidden Forest, and it had come to Harry and Ron's rescue when they faced what would have been a gruesome, horrific death in the spider colony.

Neither Harry nor Ron had ever told Hagrid that Aragog, the oldest of the elephant-sized spiders, had given his descendants permission to eat them.

Professor McGonagall led in a long line of first years. It seemed to Harry that there were a few more than had been in his group; his cohort was around forty people. This group looked closer to fifty, but probably not more.

Harry was already hungry and ready for the Sorting to be over so that the food could be served. He looked up at the head table and his eyes found Albus Dumbledore, who was in conversation with tiny Professor Flitwick.

Down the table sat Professor Snape. Harry did not look at him for more than a second. The hook-nosed man was scowling and looked as cruel and forbidding as ever. One position closer to Dumbledore than Snape sat an older, white-haired man that Harry did not recognize but supposed must be the new professor of Defense. He looked impressively old; his hair was thin and sparse and his face was heavily lined. He had dark eyes behind thick, round glasses.

Harry knew that Dumbledore was somewhere north of one hundred twenty years in age and supposed that this new professor was probably also in his second century. Unlike Dumbledore, whose face bore a mustache and a beard that stretched very long indeed, this man was clean-shaven.

Defense was a subject that had not really been taught well in Harry's first two years. He hoped that the new professor would be better than the completely useless fraud Gilderoy Lockhart, but had no real expectation that the man would climb the ladder of quality as high as "good".

Professor McGonagall placed the Sorting Hat on top of the stool that Harry remembered. The first-years were clustered together and Harry could see a few nervous faces.

The tear that served as the Hat's mouth opened, and the Hat began to sing.

_Many many years ago, when Hogwarts was first new_

_There was a task the Founders did, which these days I must do_

_Divide the lot, to surely plot_

_The best ways there were to teach_

_T'was a limit of hours in each day_

_And a large group to reach_

_I have thought in the past that the Sorting is absurd_

_But as I did not raise my voice, I have never yet been heard_

_The houses have never served a purpose_

_And they don't to this very day_

_So I'll give you this fair warning_

_And hope you hear the words I say_

_I hate this job, it makes me rob_

_The potential I see in each of you_

_To be more than a dreadful rube_

_Who believes only one place will do_

_Our school is very noble, and you all come here to learn_

_The magic we can teach you, and the magic you may earn_

_Life experience is fleeting, though your lives may yet be long_

_And there's so much I can't say in a mostly rhyming song_

_I wish I did not have this job, but it is not my place_

_To decide the rules by which we act in this hallowed space_

_Whether you'll die at twenty or two hundred_

_I have no way to know_

_I cannot see the future, and there are many ways to go_

_Magic does unite us, so too will the peace of death_

_It's a shame the school divides us_

_After a loudly spoken breath_

The tear closed, and the Hat seemed to slump.

There was no clapping or cheering for the Hat's song. Harry wondered if the hall had ever been more silent with so many people in it.

Professor McGonagall put the Hat on her head and evidently started having a "discussion" with it. After a minute she floated it towards Dumbledore, who "talked" with it only scarcely longer.

Dumbledore clapped his hands. A house-elf appeared, summoned from somewhere. It wore a black smock, and looked about as old as Dobby, however old Dobby was.

Dumbledore had words with the house-elf. The house-elf snapped its fingers, and a fifth table melted up from the floor between the four house tables, two on each side.

"To our new students and to returning students, I welcome you or welcome you back. You are all now certainly wondering what is happening. The Hat is refusing to Sort the new first-years, and in the interests of not delaying the feast any further, they shall have their own table tonight. So, now we eat!"

Platters of food appeared on the four tables. The first-years all sat down at the center table, and platters of food appeared before them, along with the gold plates, all the silverware, and goblets, and napkins.

Conversation exploded at the tables even as people began to eat.

Harry heard the exclamations of astonished, offended students. Some were irate at the Hat's nerve; some were gleeful at the novelty; he saw people eying certain first-years and knew they must be fretting about younger siblings.

Harry did not know how he would be feeling had he been in this position two years before. He had been worried about being chosen, still thinking something could go disastrously wrong... it seemed this lot of first-years was getting a very great disaster on their first nights.

The Sorting Hat's refusal to cooperate was all that anyone seemed willing to talk about. Harry tuned out the discussion; he was now feeling uncharitable and did not want to participate. Either the Hat would Sort the new students... or it would not. It would be up to Dumbledore to convince the Hat to relent, and McGonagall too, Harry supposed. Either they would succeed... or they would not.

If the first-years were Sorted, albeit later... then classes would proceed per normal. If the first-years remained unSorted, the timetables would have to be altered. Probably, harry mused, they would split the new students up by gender instead of by House affiliation. That would be quickest.

Hearing bits and pieces of the discussion led Harry to start thinking about younger siblings. He had no siblings, older or younger. Ron had plenty of older brothers, but only one younger sister, and Ginny was already in Gryffindor. Like Harry, Neville was an only child. Seamus had two older sisters; they had left Hogwarts already. Dean had a pack of younger siblings, but none of them were old enough.

Hermione too was an only child. Lavender Brown... Harry hardly ever talked to Lavender, but he thought she had a brother who would be at Hogwarts in a few years. Parvati Patil had her Ravenclaw twin, Padma; Harry was fairly sure there was a much older brother who had left for India to watch their family's overseas interests. Harry talked to Lilith Moon and Sophie Roper even less than he talked to the very flighty Lavender or Parvati. Lilith was very standoffish; as far as Harry knew, she was an only child. Sophie Roper was so quiet she made libraries seem unbearably loud by comparison; Harry did not know if she had siblings or not.

The desserts appeared. Harry ignored his usual treacle tart and helped himself to a dish of strawberry ice cream. Eventually the desserts vanished, along with the plates and eating utensils.

At the head table, Dumbledore signaled the hall for silence.

"Ahem. Just a few short announcements now that we have had our feast. Quidditch trials shall begin two weeks into term; see Madam Hooch and your House's team captains if you wish the chance.

I have been advised by Rubeus Hagrid, our gamekeeper, that the forest on the grounds has become even more restless of late. I have taken it to mean that even he is concerned. I ask you to heed this warning; you may be truly risking your life if you do not.

We are pleased to welcome Professor Quigley, a retired Magical Law Enforcement officer from Ireland, who has taken the Defense post. Please give his classes your full efforts.

Most seriously, in response to the dangers in the previous school year, your belongings have been searched. Any Dark or dangerous objects will have been confiscated, and the students who possessed them will be rigorously questioned. Expulsion is an option on the table.

First-years, please remain in the hall; sleeping bags shall be provided. Everyone else, classes will begin tomorrow as scheduled. Sleep well."

Percy Weasley, who was Head Boy, led the rest of the Gryffindors out of the hall and through the castle to the tower. He spoke the password ("Fortuna Major") to convince the Fat Lady to let them all in; she smiled at them all when the password was given.

Harry's four-poster bed looked more welcoming than ever. It had been a hard summer and an unusual day. Mulling many things over, his brain took a while to close down.

He dreamed that he was the best man at a wedding about twelve years in the future. It was Neville Longbottom getting married; the bride was a very curvy blonde woman whose face was veiled. Ron, Dean, and Seamus were the groomsmen; Dumbledore was officiating. Hermione was matron of honor; she was wearing a wedding ring, so evidently she had already wed. Lavender (with an engagement ring), Parvati (also wearing a wedding ring), Lilith, and Sophie were the ladies in waiting. It was Neville's full Gryffindor cohort in attendance.

Dumbledore said the last words. Neville and his curvy bride, who Harry now recognized as Hannah Abbott, kissed. Harry smiled a bit tearfully, looked down, and saw he had somehow forgotten his trousers.

The dream changed...


	3. The Weapons of the Mind

OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION (opened)

Memorandum No. ##########

Dated: ##/##/####

Sending: *&^$%#%^

Receive: ^%(^&(%^&%

I will take this opportunity to remind you that we are operating on a multiple-year framework. Do not neglect this fact.

OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION (closed)

([])

He dreamed that he was lying on a blanket on an isolated shoreline somewhere warm. This particular stretch of coast was flat and free of rocks, his own work; the sand was thick and fine from the same series of spells. The area was Unplottable, a kind of magic that made an area unable to be placed on any new map, and such places tended to obscure themselves on old maps. The Unplottability was also his own work.

The only other person for miles around was lying on the blanket with him. The blanket was damp from their activity. They both had a touch of exhibitionism, and loved performing in the sun, even if nobody else was around to see it. It seemed like they were resting after having performed for hours.

She was beautiful, and as naked as he was. Not very tall, but still a handful of inches shy of his own modest height. Shapely, with coffee-colored skin, with shiny black hair that fell almost to her waist. He loved running his fingers through it; she loved him running his fingers through it. He loved to do it with both of them in front of a mirror so he could see the light shining in her amber-colored eyes.

His hands roamed over her breasts; he tweaked her nipples and she mewled in appreciation. He wasn't yet ready for more but wanted to assure her that he was interested.

She turned so he could kiss her, and it became torrid again soon after.

The dream faded and Harry woke. He had been having more and more of these dreams over the last few months. They were continual; he had one or more almost every night now. Scenes of an older version of him and a girl he knew, many of them classmates but even more in the years above. The scenes were invariably in deserted places, but some had been in city flats, or small town hotels, or the like. They would be in bed, or on a blanket, or on a floor, on a couch, against a table, on a table, against a wall or against a door, usually nude or in the process of getting there, joining themselves in lust, or having just finished, or sleeping it off.

He was fascinated by the idea of a beautiful woman kneeling before him and taking him into her mouth. That happened in many of the dreams; the women looked like they were getting as much pleasure from it as he did. As alluring, though for completely different reasons, was the image of the attractive women bent forward, hands on the ground (or bed) and shapely rears in the air, so he could enter them in the exit. Those scenes were about power; Harry in those scenes was much more commanding than he considered himself to be. He recognized in the Harry of those dreams a need to dominate, and he wondered if that urge would really rise in him as he got older.

This particular dream had been with one of the Patil twins. Far from the first time for that. He thought it was Padma; Parvati usually wore hair ornaments, in life and in his dreams. In one fascinating scene he had been with both girls. The presence of two wedding rings on his right ring finger in that dream meant he had somehow _married_ both girls. He didn't think that was even legal.

Sometimes he had dreams that were absurd and not sexual, but most of the dreams were sexual and he found it difficult not to blush bright red when he interacted with the girls soon after one of these highly graphic flights of his imagination. Though he doubted any of them would be offended in the least, it was a matter of keeping out of trouble.

Third year was a pleasant sort of hell. He was glad that the year was nearly over; being away from the castle might be a positive in its own way.

Classes were a mixed-bag as they had been in the two prior years. Herbology and Astronomy were fine; he had no real complaint with either but for the time of day Astronomy lessons needed to take place at. Potions was horrible because of Snape and because of the Slytherins, but that had not changed and probably never would. History of Magic remained deathly boring. Those were the classes that had essentially not changed; only the material covered was different.

The wand classes, on the other hand...

His holly and phoenix feather wand was only a memory now, but he well remembered how he used magic with it. It was quick to respond, fairly potent with Charms and a bit better with Defense (or defensive spellwork), and protective. Not as great for Transfiguration but maybe that had been the material.

Cherry and Basilisk fang was nothing short of a monster, fitting considering the core. It held nothing back with Charms, or really with any offensive or defensive spellwork. Though in Transfiguration it was comparable to holly and phoenix feather, certainly passable but never great, it had one curious aspect: anything with edges or points came out brutally sharp. Out of curiosity one day outside of classes, he had taken a large stick found on the grounds and used the "matchstick to needle" conversion from the very first day of Transfiguration.

The result had been a rail-spike of steel. When thrown, it had lanced through a three-inch thick hardwood table without the slightest resistance. Only the lip of the metal kept the rail-spike in the wood; in that way it resembled an overlarge nail. When he pulled the spike out of the wood, he saw the hole was perfectly smooth, and shuddered.

Cherry and Basilisk fang was simply a weapon in his hands.

Defense classes were interesting for most of the year. Professor Quigley freely admitted he had never done any teaching of children before, but he was liberal with comments and he had many suggestions for spellwork the students could learn, suggestions taken from his law enforcement days. Binding spells (wrists, legs, full body), rope conjuring, the Stunning Spell (_"Stupefy_"), the Disarming Charm, and a lot of other things that Harry had already mostly learned. Still, it was useful, and the man had good stories to tell. On the whole, it made Defense far better than in his first two years.

That had lasted until March. The man had died in his sleep overnight early in the month; classes since then were handled on a rotating basis, and the overall quality had again slipped. Professor Quigley had not become a ghost, so there would be no repeat of Binns, but it was disheartening to lose a decent professor of a core subject after less than a year.

Harry's new electives were overall a chore. Divination was terrible; he hated the stiflingly hot and perfumed classroom it was taught in, he was convinced the material was rubbish, and the professor was predicting his death on a regular basis. Harry was tempted to loudly note that he had not yet died, but thought that would be a waste; it would just get him in trouble with the wretched woman, who would probably give him detention, and he didn't need more detentions. He got enough of them from Snape, most of them for no reason at all.

Care of Magical Creatures was better, but the creatures taught in the first year of the class were not very exciting. Crups, Kneazles, Puffskeins, one lesson on Flobberworms (which bored everyone to tears or sleep), hybrids of the first two with similar non-magical creatures – hybridization caused some quirks... the list was not spectacular.

Qudditch practice and the three Qudditch games helped keep Harry in a decent mood. Gryffindor had swept the three games; Oliver Wood had been all but unbeatable as a Keeper and Harry had caught the Snitch all three times. Against Slytherin in November, Gryffindor had won five hundred forty points to sixty. Against Ravenclaw in February, Gryffindor had won two hundred sixty points to twenty. And against Hufflepuff in April, with nothing really on the line, Gryffindor had pitched a shutout, one hundred ninety to zero, in a match that lasted less than fifteen minutes. Oliver Wood was over the moon in pure joy; he was nearly certain to sign with a prime team, like Puddlemere or Montrose, within days of finishing school.

In the non-Gryffindor games, Harry and his teammates watched in glee as Draco Malfoy failed to catch the Snitch against either Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. Harry wondered if the halo from the gift of the Nimbus Two Thousand Ones would let the blond keep his position on the team for much longer, or if that would wear off with continued complete futility at actually catching the Snitch.

With Marcus Flint probably leaving after this year, the Gryffindor team agreed the next Slytherin Captain would probably be Cassius Warrington, a soon-to-be sixth year whose sheer size made him probably more fit for a Beater or Keeper post than on the offensive front. It was concluded Warrington's superior flying ability compared to the other hulks made him the best choice of a poor lot. It was also concluded that Malfoy would probably make a better Chaser than Seeker if his ego would allow him to give up the halo spot. None of the Gryffindors thought that likely at all.

Quickly debated and dismissed was any question about Gryffindor's next Captain; it was unanimous among the team that Angelina Johnson would be it. It wasn't up to them to decide, but McGonagall would probably agree.

Unmentioned by Harry was his private conclusion that after Angelina left in two years (along with Alicia Spinnet and the Weasley twins), _he_ was most likely to receive the badge despite that Katie Bell, the third Chaser and a rising seventh-year at that time, would have equal time on the team and the argument that Chasers were better placed to be Captains than Seekers. Harry also didn't really want to be Captain and didn't think he'd make a good one, due to being uninterested in deeper Quidditch strategy and even less interested in leading anyone. Harry had been something of a leader at times only by necessity and coincidence, not any kind of desire.

Harry was spending a lot of his somewhat free time, i.e. the time not spent in classes, in study, or working on "the plan" with Dobby (which was going well after nearly a year), or in sleep, with the aforementioned youngest Gryffindor Chaser. She was the closest to him in age, and came from a modest background; her dad was in law enforcement and her mum was a house-witch who worked part of the time as a writer in the Muggle world. She had no siblings and was unhappy for the fact. Her dad had pushed her to pursue sports when she was in primary school; she had dominated games of footie whether playing with boys or girls. She didn't consider herself any kind of "girly girl", and had absolutely burned to fly from the moment she first held even one of the rubbishy school brooms. She wanted to play Quidditch professionally if she could.

Harry got along with her better than he did with Angelina or Alicia, not that he disliked either of them, and was coming to find her attractive. Angelina was very tall, black, slim, and elegant; Alicia was almost as dark, but neither tall nor slim; Katie was a startling contrast to the other two, being blonde, blue-eyed, slightly pale, and becoming rather curvy as she approached fifteen years. She was a few inches taller than Harry but not nearly as tall as Angelina, who stood a fraction above a meter eighty-eight, possibly not done. He had seen an older version of Katie frequently in his dreams. The older Katie was simply gorgeous and those dreams were some of the most torrid.

His own height in these dreams was in flux, ranging by seven centimeters or so from shortest to tallest, never more than a meter eighty. He was always lean in the dreams, for which he was grateful, having no desire to be a tub of lard like his uncle and cousin, nor as emaciated as his aunt. In the dreams where he seemed most healthy and fit, he was built like a whipcord, with muscles like steel cables, and he moved like a gymnast, effortlessly. As if gravity had no hold on him. It was something he wanted to achieve in "the plan". It seemed as if his vision would correct itself over time, or perhaps he would have that done for him, as he never wore glasses in these dreams, yet could still see perfectly. The brightness of his green eyes was intensified by the lack of glasses blocking them.

The Sorting Hat's refusal to Sort the new first-years had slipped out of Hogwarts via a multitude of owls. The wider community in Britain and Ireland had seethed, and the Hogwarts governors had tried to intervene. Dumbledore and McGonagall had attempted to convince the Hat to change its mind, but they had not been able to do so.

For better or worse, the Hat's decision had stood. In the end, it was decided to split the first-years up along gender lines, and build a large dormitory in one of the towers for each group. Future years would probably continue to use that tower, and eventually the Houses would vanish into mere Hogwarts' lore. Harry found he even somewhat agreed with the Hat's message, at least in theory: everyone who came to Hogwarts was magical, and that community was hardly large. It was probably wrong to divide it more than it naturally was.

The year wound down with only blips of news in the _Daily Prophet_ distracting Hogwarts students from the pressure of their looming exams:

_Ministry entering into sensitive negotiations_

_Beauxbatons and Durmstrang interested_

_Ministry says negotiations are thriving_

What exactly they were negotiating about and who was doing the negotiating on whose behalf was left obscured.

([])

The rat known only as Scabbers was on an emotional ride, swinging from high to low at speed. His nominal owner, Ron Weasley, had taken the rat to his Divination final exam for unknown reasons (unknown to the rat, that is), and for once the rat who used to be known as Peter Pettigrew, or Wormtail, was awake in the day. Granted, it was a late afternoon exam, and that was usually around when he woke up – he was generally active at night by long-standing choices and habit – but this had been a little early. It was a fortuitous event.

Divination had been a subject Peter Pettigrew took at Hogwarts for the painless high mark. Even when taught well, the most it taught you was to try and feel for the environment with senses that were not exactly physical, and to stay alert and attentive for possible signs.

These were not things Peter Pettigrew had needed to be taught. He learned them very quickly assisting his former friends with prank after trick after joke after scheme, for years. He knew everything a well-taught Divination class could teach him before his first year was over.

Not expecting to hear anything worth listening to, he hadn't really been paying attention to Ron Weasley's very obviously false answers about what he was seeing in the crystal ball – Wormtail knew damn well from Ron's tone that he was making the entire load up on the spot – he began listening when Ron started asking the professor ("Trelawney", not a name he knew) if she was alright, for apparently she seemed not to be.

And then he had heard what seemed to be a prophecy:

"_The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers … His servant has been chained these twelve years … Tonight, before midnight, those chains may fail and the servant may set out to rejoin his master … The Dark Lord could arise with that servant, as terrible or more than ever he was … Tonight, before midnight, the servant may set out to rejoin his master."_

It seemed to Wormtail after more than an hour of intense thought that the "servant" could only be him. The Dark Lord had many followers still living. Many of them were outside Azkaban, like himself. But the others had pretended bewitchment, and would not seek the Dark Lord out. It seemed to him that only he had the capacity to act, as all believed him dead. He could disappear – who would really miss a pet rat? – travel to Albania, where he believed the Dark Lord was hiding because around a year ago he had heard Ron Weasley talk about how Dumbledore said the Dark Lord was doing exactly that, find the Dark Lord, and bring him back! The Dark Lord would be grateful to Wormtail for seeking him out, and for assisting him, and for bringing him information on his followers, and his enemies.

But Wormtail was unsure. He didn't want the Dark Lord back, exactly. The wizard, if restored to his power, was certainly mighty and to be feared. But so long as the Dark Lord was not back, there was no one Wormtail truly needed protection _from_.

Sirius Black was in Azkaban. Remus Lupin was free and was certain to be an enemy if he learned the truth, but until then he was not of concern. The Dark Lord's other followers all believed Wormtail dead.

Harry Potter … the boy would be a very dangerous wizard some day in the future, but he had no idea who Pettigrew was. The boy knew almost nothing of his parents, and even less of who their friends had been. Another danger if he learned the truth, but Wormtail thought it unlikely.

The only reason to seek out the Dark Lord was to gain protection he didn't really need, and seeking out the Dark Lord would not protect him _from the Dark Lord_. Wormtail had seen the wizard torture his followers with the Cruciatus Curse when they displeased him.

Caught up in his thoughts whilst sitting at the bottom of a staircase – Hogwarts had so many of those – Wormtail temporarily forgot his long-standing policy of being observant.

Scabbers was a fairly large, if curiously long-lived, common rat. Even a fairly large rat is not nearly as large as a cat that could be fittingly described as "quite a small tiger".

Not anticipating any danger, the rat was caught unaware when a huge mass landed paw-first on top of him. The left front paw of the massive cat slammed into the top of Wormtail's back, smashing nearly every bone in his body below his front paws into fragments, crushing most of his internal organs into pulp, and in total inflicting at least twelve mortal but not _instantly_ mortal injuries. Wizards and witches are very durable, even when shaped like rodents.

The light almost went out forever in that instant for Wormtail. It did go out forever when the cat gripped Wormtail's head in its jaws and ripped it straight off, tearing out his spine in the bargain when his neck gave way. The cat swallowed the head and then ripped the body of the rat to pieces, swallowing them in turn. Not a trace was left behind.

The cat took a while to return to Ravenclaw tower; he had been hunting on one of the lower floors when he found the meal he had just consumed. Half an hour passed before he sauntered into the common room through a pet entrance, looked around, and spotted his owner sitting in a large armchair.

The cat then proved how capricious he could be when he vomited his incompletely digested meal onto the very expensive blouse of his owner, Marietta Edgecombe.

The death of Peter Pettigrew passed completely unknown by anyone still living who had once known him.

([])

Two days after Wormtail received a traitor's reward there was an article in the _Daily Prophet_:

**SENIOR MINISTRY OFFICIAL FOUND MURDERED IN HOME**

_by L. Crawford_

_It is with deep regret that the Daily Prophet reports the murder of senior Ministry of Magic Official Bartemius Crouch, aged seventy-four years. Crouch, who worked for the Ministry his entire adult life, was found dead in his home when his subordinates arrived to investigate why he failed to come into the office, having not signed for leave nor reported himself sick. Investigation of the body of Mr Crouch, who lived alone, indicated the cause of death to be the Unforgivable Killing Curse._

_Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge issued the following remarks: "I have known Barty Crouch for decades; it's hard to believe he's gone. It's even harder to believe someone would choose to murder such a dedicated servant of the public and a thoroughly decent man to boot. The Ministry will not rest until the killer, whoever they may be, is brought to justice."_

_As of this printing no identity for the culprit has been determined. There were considerable signs of a struggle at the scene. Mr Crouch's wand has not been located. It is presumed to be stolen, for reasons unknown._

_Crouch was the last of his family following the deaths of his wife Helen, to long frailty of uncertain causes, and his only son, Bartemius Crouch junior, who perished in Azkaban whilst serving a life sentence there. It is unclear at this time what will become of the family legacy._

_No successor is immediately apparent in the Ministry's Department of International Magical Cooperation, the office Bartemius Crouch headed._

The _Daily Prophet_ seethed with speculative articles for days but there was little to base the speculation on. No motive was apparent, though many were included in the speculative articles.

Five days after the article announcing Mr Crouch's murder came an article declaring the homicide death of Ministry official Walden Macnair, who worked in the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, as an executioner of dangerous beasts.

Two days later came an article declaring the death of Reginald Yaxley, another Ministry employee.

Two further days later, wealthy philanthropist Harvard Nott's death was announced. There was evidence that a considerable amount of gold had been taken from Nott's home.

It seemed to be a killing spree. It was quickly noted that all of those murdered were done in by the Killing Curse, and that the victims following Bartemius Crouch had all been accused of being Death Eaters. All of the victims' wands were missing. Interestingly, the axe Macnair used in his work, which he evidently kept at home, was also reported missing.

It was quickly speculated that the killer intended on eliminating all those accused but cleared of being Death Eaters, and that the murder of Bartemius Crouch senior had simply been a random event. Nobody could dismiss the idea.

The newspaper would be nearly aflame for months. The wider community was divided and loud about it.

In the last days of the summer term, the Quidditch World Cup, to be held late in the summer holiday, in Britain for the first time in more than thirty years, was on everyone's mind. Ireland was considered a favorite; their Chaser line was said to be sensationally good. The national teams of the United Kingdom were thought to not be nearly as strong as the Irish squad.

Seamus Finnigan talked about the Irish team constantly; he was predicting not only that the Irish would get to the final game but that they would win the whole tourney.

It seemed much of the school was determined to attend; Draco Malfoy was bragging that his family would have seats "in the top box or close". The way he smirked when he said it was even more arrogant than usual; Harry longed to hit him right in his pale, pointed face.

Harry lamented while on the train ride southward that he would miss practically the whole tournament while stuck at Privet Drive. The thought gave him no pleasure at all.

With Dobby agreeing to help as he did last summer and as he had this year, Harry was determined that the Dursleys would not ruin his holiday no matter what.


	4. Spear them with the Sharpest Blade

OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION (opened)

Memorandum No. ##########

Date: ##/##/####

Sending: *&^$%#%^

Receive: not applicable

MEMORANDUM TO BE ARCHIVED INDEFINITELY

Numbers are the soul of nature. The beauty of nature rests in the numbers that can be applied to it, and how those numbers can be found and interpreted.

The beauty of a population lies in how it can be measured. When all the data is found and examined, patterns emerge in the maelstrom. The numbers cluster.

From the range of data, when the center-points are found, we might see one of the most beautiful of all phenomena: the outlier.

Outliers, as one imagines by the name, lie far outside the normal range, either above or below. They lie so far outside the normal range that they can possibly move the bar, and so their presence is removed from the data, though the phenomena persists. Outliers are wonderful for the simple reason that their existence can never be predicted. It can only be observed.

OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION (closed)

([])

The dream changed …

He dreamed he was sitting in front of a fireplace, which was currently filled with flames. The fireplace was the main source of heat for the cabin, which had no electricity as there was no civilization for miles around. He had come here for the isolation, and isolated he was, though alone he was not.

She had been with him for years now.

Her light brown hair had darkened over the years, and she no longer wore it boyishly short. It now descended to the middle of her back, and had become wavy with time. Her dark eyes still sparkled in the dim light, her skin was still just a bit pale, and she still shone in that odd way that represented her magic in his sight.

He had met her a few years after starting at Hogwarts. Sometimes he thought of those early days as solstice dawn.

He turned as he heard her soft footsteps. In the light he saw she was wearing a thin slip of a dress which pretended at being blue but was almost transparent, and nothing else. His eyes roamed over her, stopping after a while on the swell of her abdomen. Their child was growing in her; their son or daughter was due in a few short weeks. Hardly any time at all. Her right hand moved over her belly; he thought the baby must be kicking.

To the Harry of the dream, these peaceful times, this happy scene, represented all that mattered to him in the world.

The dream faded …

The smallest bedroom of Number Four was as stuffy and cluttered as it had always been when its occupant woke just after sunrise on the first day of August.

The erotic dreams of the last several months were continuing to fill many of his nights, but in addition to those a new breed of dream was occurring; one without the blatant eroticism but just as emotionally charged in their own way. Scenes of an older Harry and a female partner who was carrying his child. These dreams were enough to make a grown man weep, yet the dreamer was only just fourteen …

It was a prime ingredient in a recipe that looked like disaster.

Harry Potter had been back at the Dursleys for about six weeks now and was well-ready to leave. It was Sunday, and the previous Monday he had received a note in the early hours of the morning that spoke of the opportunity to do exactly that.

_Harry:_

_If it is convenient to you, I shall come to call at your relations' home this Sunday morning, around ten, to remove you for the last month of your summer holiday. If this time is acceptable, or if not, please respond by return owl._

It was in the loopy handwriting that he recognized as belonging to Albus Dumbledore. Harry had hastily scribbled a reply in the affirmative and sent it off with the same owl, a rather large and ruffled-looking barn.

His birthday had been the day before; as expected, it had gone completely ignored by the Dursleys, and he was happy for that. Better nothing at all than to be locked up.

Hermione had sent him a black journal that he was still bothered about; it was marked as an O.W.L preparation aid, and was set up with calendars and log-entries to record dates, subjects studied, and time spent studying. Harry knew very well that those exams were nearly two full school-years away and was not happy about receiving reminders of them this long in advance. He knew Hermione was just being her determined swotty self and that she had good intentions with the gift, but it was simply too soon. He couldn't worry about tests at the end of his fifth year before he'd even begun his fourth.

Ron had sent him a book called _The Seeker's Secrets_, and the accompanying letter told him it was part of a set; Chasers, Beaters, and Keepers all had their own volumes. The youngest Weasley brother had written extensively about the on-going Quidditch World Cup tourney, and had mentioned that he was planning to try for the Gryffindor Keeper position which would need filling in the autumn.

Ron had written a little about his brothers' exam results. Percy had scored extremely well on all his N.E. and had just landed a job in the Ministry, a very junior administration post in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

Fred and George had achieved more mixed results on their Ordinary Wizarding Levels – the highest pass mark in the subjects they wanted to continue, but they had failed multiple exams apiece and Mrs Weasley was not happy about it at all. Ron wrote that Fred and George didn't seem at all concerned about their mother's ire.

Mrs Weasley had sent Harry a short note in the package, which held a large plum cake and several meat pies. Errol, the Weasleys' owl, was still recovering from the haul.

The strangest gift had come from Hagrid: it was a very large knife, or perhaps a very short sword. According to Hagrid it was dwarf-made steel and he had gone on to write that "you can never go wrong having a good knife". Harry appreciated the gift but did not think he had much use for it at present. Harry was more appreciative of the thick chocolate cake sent with the blade.

Harry had restarted his acts of vengeance and chaos-sowing around Privet Drive. He had smashed in two windows, ruined several flowerbeds, scratched the paint jobs on numerous cars, and done a few other things he knew the stuffy, small-minded people would consider "havoc". Privet Drive was seething again but there was nothing anyone could do without evidence; worse still for the small-minded people was that others were evidently getting in on the act. The local playground had been thoroughly trashed; Harry had not been involved, limiting himself to attacking personal property instead of public. It gave Harry some malicious joy to ponder over the difficulties in catching multiple sets of vandals.

The plan was also going well. Harry felt he was to be congratulated on sticking to it; he especially liked that the results were largely hidden from the Dursleys by the oversized clothing he still wore while in his summer exile. Dudley had returned from Smeltings even fatter than Harry had ever seen him, and Harry thought it was amazing how physically different his cousin was from himself. His aunt and uncle were determinedly ignoring Dudley's end-of-year report, in which the school nurse had remarked that Smeltings' outfitters no longer stocked clothing large enough for Dudley; the adult Dursleys had found the usual excuses for Dudley's bad marks and completely dismissed the accusations of bullying. In their eyes, Dudley was wonderful; Harry thought that in unbiased eyes, Dudley was a fourteen year-old boy who weighed over twenty-one stone despite standing only a meter sixty-five.

At half-seven Harry left the cluttered room and went downstairs to the kitchen. None of the Dursleys were awake, but Harry thought it was better to start preparing breakfast in advance and avoid any fuss, not that he would be thanked. He took only a small portion; Dobby would supply him easily enough. He had finished his plateful before the Dursleys even entered, merely gesturing to the stove filled with pans of food when they did. He then returned to the bedroom to wait.

He had not bothered to tell them of Dumbledore's imminent arrival, thinking it would be an unpleasant surprise.

With hardly a minute remaining before the appointed hour he looked through the front window of the cluttered bedroom, which faced the street. Quicker than a flash, his headmaster popped out of thin air and stood on the walking path. Harry did not even try to suppress the vengeful smirk that crept over his features; his so-called family were in for quite a surprise.

Harry watched Albus Dumbledore strolling up the walking path as if he had all the time in the world. His headmaster was not in robes as Harry always saw him, but instead wore a very sharply cut, navy blue suit and a tan coat. He had tied his long hair back and shortened his beard; the effect made him look years younger. The clothes would not have looked out of place at an upscale clothier.

Dumbledore slipped out of sight and a second or two later Harry heard him knock three times on the door, three sharp raps. Quickly, Harry exited the bedroom and raced to the top of the staircase. He watched as his aunt walked to the door and opened it. She held it open for several seconds, staring (probably open-mouthed, Harry thought) at the form of the professor.

"Good morning," Dumbledore greeted Harry's aunt. "Would this be the residence of the Dursley family?"

Harry watched his aunt nod.

"That is all to the good," Dumbledore said. "May I come in?"

Harry watched his aunt nod again, and then amazingly, she stepped aside for Dumbledore to enter. Harry heard his uncle's heavy footsteps and his cousin's equally heavy (or even heavier) ones as they came from the kitchen. Harry could tell that none of the Dursleys had any idea who this was, and he wondered why they had let him in. Perhaps they were a bit stunned.

"I am Albus Dumbledore," said the headmaster, to Harry's aunt. "We have corresponded, of course."

Harry had moved into view behind the Dursleys, and he watched his aunt fidget slightly, but she did not challenge the statement.

"Shall we sit down?" It was a question, but Harry watched as the Dursleys seemed to take it as an invitation and sat down on the sofa, Dudley between his parents. The sofa groaned from the strain.

Harry moved further into view. Dumbledore looked at him at last. Harry saw the twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes and knew Dumbledore had purposely not addressed him.

Dumbledore sat down on an armchair and simply looked at Harry. "Ah, Harry." The headmaster was smiling. "Excellent, excellent."

Harry watched the vein in Vernon's temple throb slightly. Harry knew that in Vernon's mind, nobody who could look at Harry and see anything "excellent" was anyone with whom Vernon could ever see eye-to-eye.

Dumbledore now faced Dudley. "And this must be your boy Dudley." Dumbledore nodded in such a way that Harry instantly thought was dismissive. "Charming lad. He takes after his father." Though the words caused Petunia and Vernon to smile, Harry alone heard the snide undertone.

"Aren't we leaving, Professor?" Harry asked. He really wanted to be out of this place.

"Presently, Harry, presently, but we must talk with your aunt and uncle for a little bit." Dumbledore smiled genuinely now. He addressed the Dursleys again.

"As you know, Harry comes of age in about three years' time..." he began, but was interrupted.

"Four," said Harry's aunt. "He'll be eighteen in four years, not three."

Dumbledore nodded gravely. "Indeed, you are correct. But in Harry's world and mine, we come of age at seventeen."

Vernon muttered something that sounded like "rubbish". Dumbledore ignored this.

"Though he is not of age to conduct legal business, he has some right now to peruse legal documentation. I received a note on his behalf from... the bank... asking for his presence. He and I will depart in a moment, and he won't return this summer. I realize this is a little early and unexpected, but I received the note yesterday afternoon."

Dumbledore looked at Harry. "Harry, it would be good if you packed up now, assuming you have not done so."

Harry took this for the dismissal it was. He walked upstairs slowly, but he did not hear Dumbledore or the Dursleys' voices again. Thinking there must have been a Silencing Charm used, he returned to the smallest bedroom.

He was already packed, and it rather rankled that he couldn't hear whatever Dumbledore had to say to his "family". He tapped on Hedwig's cage; his snowy owl had been sleeping but was quick to wake.

"Hedwig, I'm sorry for waking you, but Dumbledore is getting me out of here for the summer. You want to fly out?" Hedwig clicked her beak in the way Harry knew meant she was annoyed; Harry knew it was the short rest, his owl liked Privet Drive no more than Harry did, which was not at all. She nipped his finger in understanding, but a fraction harder than necessary; Harry understood it to be a reproof. Harry opened the window and then her cage; Hedwig spread her enormous wings and flew out.

Dumbledore entered the small room. "That went well enough," he said, but he did not elaborate even when Harry gave him a look.

"I believe that is the Weasleys' owl?" Dumbledore pointed to Errol, who had been on the perch. Harry nodded.

"I will see that the owl gets home," Dumbledore said.

Harry was not to be diverted. "You got a note from Gringotts about me, sir?"

Dumbledore nodded, looking bland. "A mixture of truth and fiction, Harry, though the note itself was quite genuine. I expect there is some _specific_ business the goblins want to address; I am afraid I have no idea what that might be" he said, when Harry was about to inquire.

Harry started to wrap up the remaining food he had been sent; everything else, apart from his wand (pocketed) was in his trunk. A moment later Dumbledore shrunk the packed trunk with a flourish of his own wand, Harry pocketed the trunk, and the two left the room. They shortly left the house; Harry didn't bother saying goodbye to his relatives. He wanted to be rid of them forever, not just for another year.

Dumbledore took Harry to Gringotts and then said goodbye, saying he would see Harry in September. Harry was left to deal with the goblins … on what grounds he had little idea.

([])

In the end, he found the business to be remarkably straight-forward.

He was escorted into a cramped office marked "Estates" by a goblin he vaguely recognized but did not know the name of. The name and title on the office door read "Keeper Sharphook". Inside the cramped office was a shelf of books, and a desk with two piles of parchment, and a goblin who Harry could only assume was Sharphook himself sitting behind the desk.

The goblin looked up at Harry, nodded curtly, and then pointed to a chair Harry supposed he was to sit in. He did not tender any kind of polite greeting, and Harry offered none, thinking that would only waste time. He had some inkling that wasting time was a very unwise idea around goblins.

"The grace period required before wills can be opened varies in certain cases" began the goblin, and Harry gave him his fullest attention. "The exact details are immaterial. We contacted your headmaster several days ago, and he said he would bring you in on this date. I believe he then contacted you?" The goblin's eyebrows were fractionally higher; Harry just nodded.

"The grace period before the Crouch will could be opened expired the day before we contacted the headmaster. We opened the will, and you were listed as the sole beneficiary."

Harry's eyebrows lifted; he was surprised, but knew this was not the time to inquire why he would have been listed as such. Answers either would be forthcoming or would not.

"Most of this has been without any trouble. A substantial amount of money, a short distance over a million Galleons, has been moved into your vault."

The goblin cleared his throat. Harry wanted to ask exactly how much it had been, and how much it raised his vault to holding, but did not dare interrupt.

"The rest of the estate has been handled according to the following directions. All sundry items of limited commercial value have been removed from the home. All furnishings have been left in place. You inherit the home itself and all the contents within, plus an acre of largely forested property surrounding it."

The goblin coughed twice. "The first trouble is that the Crouch family kept an enormous full set of goblin-wrought silver forged five centuries ago. We would like to reclaim it since the family is gone. However, this is up to you."

"Take it," Harry said almost instantly. "I don't want it." Harry wanted no part of owning the silver used by a family he had no connection to. It felt very morbid.

The goblin nodded curtly, but Harry could tell he was satisfied by this response.

"The second trouble is that there are numerous portraits of deceased members of the Crouch family hanging throughout the house."

Harry shuddered. "I don't want them." He thought for a minute. "Er, donate them to Hogwarts. They might be hung in the school, or else stored somewhere, but I don't want them." However little he wanted the silver of an extinct family, he wanted the portraits even less.

Another curt nod.

"Finally, we offer to establish new protections surrounding the home. These could include removing it from the Floo Network, rendering the home Unplottable, or perhaps even placing it under Fidelius, if that suits you."

The goblin's eyebrows were raised again. Harry wanted to ask questions about these protections, and knew the time for questions had arrived.

"Tell me about these protections. And any others you have on offer." He smiled slightly.

The goblin's return smile was very wicked indeed.

([])

Harry stared at himself in a mirror and thought he looked bizarre. His hair had been lightened to brown and now lay flat for the first time he could ever remember. His eyes too were brown, a bright brown that made him recall Ginny Weasley because it was a perfect match. The famous scar was hidden by Muggle stage makeup. He only vaguely resembled himself and yet did not resemble himself.

Dobby, he decided, did masterful work.

He had assumed the identity of "Mr Priest", a client of Gringotts who was paying for the protections on an inherited property to be powerfully raised. A _Fidelius_ was cast, with Dobby as the Secret-Keeper, and it was not a single Charm but a lengthy and ritualized chant in Latin. The house was rendered Unplottable (which made Portkeys unworkable), and that too was not a single Charm, but was another ritual very much akin to _Fidelius_. The house had been made impossible to Apparate to or from, and had its Floo connection cut (contact was open, transport closed), and there were also protections of the goblins' devising in place; Harry had not been able to get any real details from Sharphook but he was assured they were brutal.

Cassowary Hall, formerly the residence of the Crouch family, now was perhaps the safest private residence in the world. Light could find him here, and Hedwig could find him here, but nearly nothing else could reach this place without Dobby's help due to the _Fidelius_. The team from Gringotts had Portkeyed in but flown out on brooms, their memory of the place gone because of the _Fidelius_.

The services had not come cheap; Harry's vaunt had been lessened by over ten thousand Galleons. He was not overly concerned, having just inherited more than a million, and knowing the protections were intended to be very long-lasting if not permanent.

Dobby had set out to replace the sundries that had been removed. The home was, for now, not equipped.

But what a home it was. A huge stone edifice with three floors, more than a dozen bedrooms and nearly a dozen full baths; a ballroom for at least fifty guests; a dining room that could seat the whole lot; a library and multiple parlors; an enormous kitchen; a room set aside only for cloaks – it was attached to the ballroom so Harry knew that was its purpose; an owlery where Hedwig was now asleep … there were many more rooms and wardrobes than Harry knew what to do with.

He shook his head as he thought of the reason he owned it all now: Bartemius Crouch had left him this estate because he had no relatives living that he wanted to acknowledge, and so decided that his money and home should go to The-Boy-Who-Lived.

Harry did not think the man had even been related to him, but had left him everything anyhow. Harry would not have wanted it, but it was now his. He had to deal with it, because it was now his. He was slightly in fear of it, because it was now his; were there other estates out there that he would inherit when other people some day died, because they decided to leave what they owned to a stranger, a stranger they mistakenly believed had saved them?

He rather desperately hoped not.

Sighing, he turned away from the mirror, left that bathroom, and went to one of the parlors with a fireplace, to wait. Slowly, the comfort of the chair lulled him to sleep.

He dreamed that he was at another wedding some years in the future. It was his own wedding this time; but neither he nor his bride were dressed in wedding clothes. He wore camouflage fatigues that were clearly military in origin, but there was no rank or insignia attached, nor a badge with his name. His bride – Padma Patil, he realized – wore a midnight blue dress which flowed over her like water and hugged every curve. She was six or seven months along, and he knew the child was his … theirs. Strangely, neither he nor Padma had anyone attending them. He looked to the guests; they were few in number. Padma's parents were in the front row on one side of the aisle, as was Parvati. But on Harry's side of the aisle, there was only Hermione and a little girl, maybe three years old.

A little girl who looked much like her mother, but with brilliant green eyes.

The dream faded …

He awoke to the sound of phoenix song, and the sight of Fawkes sitting on the ottoman in front of the chair he'd just been asleep in. There was a note at Fawkes' feet. Harry shook himself to get over the idea of a phoenix playing delivery owl, then took the note.

Dumbledore's familiar loopy handwriting greeted him.

_Harry:_

_I am sorry that I left you at the bank so abruptly, but the goblins would not have appreciated my presence while you were conducting business with them._

_I feel I must take this opportunity to say that we are long overdue to have a certain conversation I much wish to delay, but have no right to do so._

_Finally, it is said that "the burden which is borne well becomes light." Does this mean the burden that is not borne well remains heavy? This question has been on my mind more and more of late._

_APD_

Harry read the letter three times, but it seemed to carry no deeper meaning than what was on the surface. He eyed Fawkes carefully.

"Does he often ask you to carry letters?"

The phoenix's responding trill somehow conveyed the idea of 'negation'.

"How did he find me here?" Harry muttered, and then stopped. He had been thinking about this earlier. Light could find him here. A phoenix is a creature of light and flame, of death and rebirth, of magic and wings and songs. Of course a phoenix could find him here.

"He didn't find me here," Harry said, now addressing Fawkes. "_You_ found me here."

The phoenix's responding trill somehow conveyed the idea of 'affirmation'.

Harry listened as Fawkes sang him a full concert, not knowing the phoenix's reasons but very thankful for the gift. After more than an hour the phoenix disappeared in a burst of flames.


End file.
